Racing career

Early career

Nemechek began racing at the age of thirteen in
motocross, and won three hundred career races over the next six years. After winning various awards in different short track series around the country, Nemechek made his Busch Series debut at
North Carolina Speedway in 1989, where he started 40th and finishing 33rd after suffering engine failure in his No. 88
Buick.

Busch Series

Nemechek moved up to the Busch Series in 1990, running the No. 87 with sponsorship from Master Machine & Tool, posting two top-fives and finishing seventeenth in points, winning Rookie of the Year honors. He had sixteen top-ten finishes and finished sixth in points the following year. In 1992, Nemechek got full-time sponsorship from
Texas Pete sauce, and got his first two career wins and defeated
Bobby Labonte for the championship by three points. He did not win again in 1993, but he won three poles and finished fifth in points. That season, he made his Winston Cup debut at
New Hampshire International Speedway for his NEMCO team, starting 15th before finishing 36th after suffering
rocker arm failure. After running two more races in the 87, he ran a pair of races for
Morgan-McClure Motorsports, his best finish 23rd at Rockingham.

2000–2005

For 2000, Nemechek signed to drive the No. 33 Oakwood Homes-sponsored Chevrolet for
Andy Petree Racing, winning the pole at Talladega and finishing a career-best 15th in points. He missed five races the following year after suffering an elbow injury at a test at Dover in 2001, then went on to win the
Pop Secret Microwave Popcorn 400 at
North Carolina Speedway that November.

After Petree's team began to run into financial problems, Nemechek's team was left without a sponsor and he left for
Haas-Carter Motorsports to take over the No. 26
Kmart-sponsored
Ford Taurus that
Jimmy Spencer had left to drive for
Chip Ganassi Racing. However, Nemechek went from one financial problem to another as Kmart filed for bankruptcy early in the 2002 season and stopped sponsoring the Haas-Carter team. This forced Haas-Carter to scale back its operations to one team and Nemechek was released in favor of keeping
Todd Bodine, who was driving the team's other car, in the fold. Nemechek found an opportunity almost immediately as
Johnny Benson, who was the driver of the No. 10
Valvoline Pontiac for
MBV Motorsports, was injured in a crash and required a substitute. After driving several races in the No. 10 Nemechek was hired by
Hendrick Motorsports to replace
Jerry Nadeau in the No. 25 UAW/Delphi-sponsored Chevrolet. Nemechek drove the remainder of the season for Hendrick and performed well enough to earn a full-time ride the next season.

In 2003, Nemechek started in second spot, led the most laps and won the
Pontiac Excitement 400. The race was rain-shortened with seven laps left, and just three minutes under a red flag, NASCAR called the race official. Nemechek in an indoor victory lane, dedicated his win to fellow driver
Jerry Nadeau who previously suffered a massive crash during a practice run; an accident that ended Nadeau's career in all motorsports.

After the big win, Nemechek posted five other Top 10 finishes, but finished 25th in points. It wasn't enough for Nemechek to keep his job at Hendrick, and at the end of the season was released from his contract.

For the
2004, season, Nemechek returned to MB2/MBV Motorsports, taking over the No. 01 U.S. Army car. He was again replacing Jerry Nadeau as the driver although this time it was due to Nadeau suffering a severe injury that would eventually end his racing career. He won two poles late in the season. In October, Nemechek won at
Kansas Speedway, beating out
Ricky Rudd at the finish line. Nemechek also won the Busch Series race at Kansas the day before, making him the first driver to pull the Busch-Cup double win at the track.

In
2005, Nemechek won a pole at
Michigan. The season was highlighted by a feud with
Kevin Harvick. After Harvick caused a multi car crash involving Nemechek during practice for the
2005 Daytona 500, Nemechek and
Jimmie Johnson were outspoken about their displeasure with Harvick. Later, Nemechek got into a tussle with Harvick during The Nextel Challenge. Nemechek and Harvick had an interaction post-race that nearly came to blows, Nemechek saying "Kevin thinks he owns this world and he ain't squat."

At the end of the season, Nemechek fell seven points short of matching his career-best points finish.

2006–2010

The MB2 was rebranded as
Ginn Racing following Bobby Ginn's purchase of the team in 2006. He moved to Ginn's No. 13 with a
CertainTeed sponsorship after veteran
Mark Martin and rookie
Regan Smith were tapped to share the No. 01 car. In July 2007, Nemechek was released due to a lack of sponsorship for the No. 13, which was subsequently shut down.[2] He signed with
E&M Motorsports and although he failed his first attempt to qualify at Indy, he made his way into the field for the Michigan race weekend driving the No. 08 Fans On Board-sponsored Dodge. He spent the rest of the season driving for
Furniture Row Racing, and signed a three-year contract with FRR to continue to drive in the No. 78 and help expand the team. In April 2008, at Talladega, Joe Nemechek grabbed his 10th career pole driving the No. 78 National Day of Prayer/ Furniture Row-sponsored car. It marked Furniture Row Racing's first ever pole. In October 2008, Nemechek finished 11th at the Talladega race. In November 2008, Furniture Row Racing announced that they were planning on running a limited schedule in 2009 or perhaps not at all in light of the economic situation. The day after this announcement Nemechek was released from his contract and as a result making him free to pursue other opportunities for 2009 and beyond. Shortly thereafter, Joe announced that he would be bringing his NEMCO Motorsports team back to full competition in both of NASCAR's top series, Sprint Cup and Nationwide. He would race the No. 87 Chevy in Nationwide and the No. 87 Camry in Cup. Nemechek ran most of the races for both series that season, but occasionally had a younger fill in. In the
Pepsi 300 at
Nashville Superspeedway, Nemechek flipped after contact with several other cars. His car had minor damage, and he was able to drive it back to pit road.

Nemechek raced in 30 Cup races during the 2009 season despite very little funding. He finished just three events and did multiple "
start and parks" where a driver starts the race, then parks to conserve parts, tires, etc. and to collect the prize money. On two occasions, he gave up his ride to Scott Speed after his fully funded ride failed to qualify for Darlington and Sonoma. He qualified for the
2010 Daytona 500 after missing the race the year before. Nemechek picked up sponsorship from England Stove Works, but was involved in an accident on lap 64. Nemechek would go on to compete in 30 more Cup races with most being "start and parks." That season was highlighted by the
2010 AMP Energy Juice 500, Nemechek led the first lap after starting fourth. He would run the full distance, finishing 27th after suffering a blown tire.

2011–2014

Nemechek brought his No. 87 cars back for 2011 to once again run both major NASCAR series. Nemechek successfully qualified for the Daytona 500 for the second year in a row, but was once again involved in an early incident, thus failing to finish again. On June 9 at
Texas Motor Speedway, along with
Jeff Burton he made his 900th
NASCAR start in all top three series. In the Nationwide Series, Nemechek scored his first top five since 2005 with a 3rd-place finish at the
Aaron's 312 after being in position to win with 2 laps to go. In July, Nemechek picked up sponsorship from Extenze and AM FM Energy to run the full race in both series at
Daytona International Speedway. He led laps in both races but was taken out in late accidents. Nemechek collected Nationwide Series points for 2011 under NASCAR's policy that a driver may accumulate points for only one series, and finished 14th in the final standings. He ran the No. 87 in both the Sprint Cup and Nationwide Series in 2012, with the Cup ride as a start-and-park to fund the Nationwide team. Nemechek made his 600th career start at Michigan and finished 40th after starting 37th.[3] Nemechek finished 11th in the 2012 Nationwide Series points.

In April 2014, Nemechek announced that he would be driving the No. 86
Deware Racing GroupChevrolet Camaro with sponsorship from
Bubba Burger. In the 2014 Aarons 312, Nemechek was running towards the front during the entire race. With 3 laps remaining, Nemechek was running in the top 10 and finished 6th, his 126th top ten in the Nationwide Series. For the
Coke Zero 400, Nemechek entered with the No. 29
RAB RacingToyota with sponsorship from
Toyota Care, but failed to qualify. Nemechek joined
Randy Humphrey Racing for the
Oral-B USA 500, qualifying 34th and finishing 37th.[5] He returned to RAB Racing's No. 29 at the
2014 GEICO 500, and initially qualified 24th. However, his car failed post-race inspection for an improperly sealed oil tank encasement, leaving him as one of the race's 3 DNQs. This was the first time Nemechek did not race on a superspeedway in his 22 years of Sprint Cup competition.

2015

Nemechek's team announced that for the
2015 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series season that his team would be returning to
Chevrolet after a three-year tenure with Toyota. Nemechek returned to his own team in the Xfinity and Cup series, running a limited schedule with Chevrolets. Nemechek began the season by failing to qualify for the Xfinity race at Daytona, and withdrawing from the
Daytona 500.

The following week at Atlanta, he was announced as the substitute for
David Ragan in the No. 34 CSX Ford for
Front Row Motorsports. At the time, Ragan was driving for
Joe Gibbs Racing in place of the injured
Kyle Busch.[6] Nemechek drove the No. 34 car to a 33rd-place finish in what would be his only Cup Series start of the season, and that has been the last time he made a cup start.

2016

Nemechek made two appearances in 2016, driving his own No. 87 in both Xfinity races at Daytona. Nemechek finished 18th in February and 36th in July after being caught in an early crash while he was running in the top 10.

2017

It was announced January 20, 2017 that Nemechek would drive the No. 87 truck in the first three races of the season.[7] Nemechek would finish 5th in the season opening race. The next week he would finish 24th at Atlanta. Beginning at Gateway after a 4 race break, Nemechek
start and parked the No. 87 until the end of the season (skipping only Eldora. At Martinsville he gave up the ride for
Ty Dillon who brought sponsorship for run full-race). Nemechek's son,
John Hunter, would win Gateway's race. That same thing happened again the next week at Iowa, after his son once again won the race. Nemechek returned to Xfinity Series and drove final 2 races for
JD Motorsports in Phoenix he start and parked the No. 15 and in Homestead he drove the No. 01 (his old number in 2003–2006 Cup series' seasons) and finished the Stage 1 in the 10th position however he struggled in Stage 2 and 3 and came home in 27th.